I can't believe that the National Spelling Bee has a thread in Sports Shows, but Cheerleading doesn't. The hell?

Here's a place for my fellow cheerTWoPsters to join me to talk about the sport we love (and sometimes hate) but have sadly outgrown.

Thought I'd join you over here. (Listens to the crickets) guess we're all waiting to watch ESPN this weekend for Nationals?!

Ack...if I'm not careful I'm going to end up putting a bow in my hair and finding some gum to chew....

Thanks, Elora. It has been pretty lonely over here. What competition is coming on this weekend? What time/channel?

Last week, I watched the NCA competition. I'm more familiar with NCA since they ran the camps I went to in both high school, and I ran some high school camps during college.

Anywho, when I was there many, many moons ago, we had about 7 to 9 categories. Now they have nearly 20. Some of them were completely redundant (Small Coed - Small) or oxymoronic (Small Coed - Large). The hell?

I realize cheerleading has grown in popularity and complexity, but does every niche group need their own competition category? It cuts into how much of each squad's performance you get to see. Last week's competition only featured about 20 seconds of the top 3 in the major categories and only the winner in the subgroups. It was so anticlimactic.

I have no idea just what's being shown this weekend. I just caught something somewhere saying 1600 on 4/8 on ESPN was going to be Cheerleading.

I hope it's not disappointing...I want to see full routines, not just clips. But the last couple competitions I saw on ESPN did seem to be more clips trying to get everyone in there than focusing on the routines of the top 4.

Have you read where many schools won't even stunt anymore because of that cheerleader who broke her neck - the young lady who was on Today Show recently because she kept cheering while being taken out on the stretcher? I thought it was SO cool of her to do that...

ESPN2 is showing the UCA high school cheerleading championships at 4pm ET, and then the college dance championships are on at 6pm ET (both on April 9).

As for schools deciding to ban certain stunts in the aftermath of Southern Illinois University cheerleader Kristi Yamaoka's fall, schools have always decided, to a certain extent, how much they were willing to let their cheerleaders do. For example, Duke has only allowed tumbling since the mid-80s, and the University of Nebraska banned flips and pyramids after one of their cheerleaders was paralyzed doing back handsprings in 1996.

The problem is that as a result of Kristi's fall, the NCAA banned pyramids more than two levels high as well as basket tosses without a mat at basketball games for the remainder of the 2006 season (no concrete word yet on if this will become a permanent rule). That forced all NCAA teams to comply with this rule or risk having the basketball team disqualified from the tournament.

In light of all this, some schools have elected to tighten their restrictions on what the cheerleaders can do. Oregon State says they are banning "risky acrobatics" and "high risk moves" while refocusing the squad on cheering (and I don't know exactly how they will define those terms). The OSU athletic director said, "We simply cannot appropriately supervise and facilitate these activities. The decision is really in the best interest of the student cheerleaders, who still have options to pursue competitive cheerleading and stunts as a student group." It sounds like they are saying if you want to do the more advanced stunts, you have to form a club but the official school cheerleaders will not be doing those tricks.

To be honest, it seems like the schools are simply trying to limit their liability. The Nebraska cheerleader won a $2.1 million settlement in 2001. One article I read said that since 1998. 25% of "catastrophic injury claims" have been from cheerleading, and half of the catastrophic injuries that happen to female athletes are cheerleading injuries. OSU said that cheerleading injuries "have taxed the medical staff of the athletic department and lessened the time trainers have available for working with varsity athletes." In other words, the schools don't want to be sued for injuries and they don't want to use their resources to tend to the injuries.

The American Association of Cheerleading Coaches and Administrators is meeting on April 20 to discuss their guidelines for next year. NCAA and NAIA teams are required to comply with the AACCA rules, so whatever they decide will affect all collegiate cheerleading squads.

talkstoomuch, ITA with you about how many divisions there are now. Do we really need a separate category for small coed junior varsity pom poms with props and pink tutus? It seems like a way for all the competitions to make more money. Instead of just having large all girl cheer and large coed cheer, now they can break it into all kinds of categories, allowing schools to enter more than one category, hence more entry fees and more video tapes/DVDs they can sell to the parents at $50 each. When I was in high school, many moons ago, our dance team competed in one category. Now they compete in three or four categories, so it's exponentially more expensive (more costumes, more rehearsals, more fees, more videos/DVDs).

I'm not saying I disagree with tamping things down a bit in the name of safety. I'm all for it, actually. Sorry for not quite being clear.

They did that with my squad back in 91 though after a girl fell from a 2-1 prep and broke her arm. No more stunts, they said. That ticked us all off because there was so little they'd let us do in the first place - no extensions, no tosses; because our sponsor had no experience in cheerleading. Never mind the COACH having been a gymnast and cheerleader through college AND gymnastic/coach at a stateside All Star gym! I didn't then, nor do I now, think that was a wise decision.

Anyway...here today, like has been mentioned in the other thread it seems squads have a tendency to be doing flashier things without a solid grounding in the basics. That is what I think is leading to the increase in injuries. With Dunbar, they've been having problems since they changed around Chelsea's stunt group - so they had the fall in competition. Were it me, I'd have those girls at an extra practice once a week for an hour (or twice for half an hour) working on nothing but working together as a stunt group. But something. I'm not discounting that accidents do happen - but they are more likely to happen when safety is forgotten in the name of doing something new.

I don't go for the twenty million little subgroups for competition either. Also, cheer competetions themselves seem to be more on dance and tumbling than on cheer. They do what..30-45seconds of a cheer now? I noticed in our little county Cheer competition that the squads that placed were all heavy on dance and tumbling if they had girls who could tumble. The squads that CHEERED more didn't place.

That saddens me that it seems that as far as competition - the cheering itself is falling to the wayside! I'd like to see longer cheers done - and more than just saying "station identification" over and over.

The only thing I don't like is why all of the stunts and gymnastics are now necessary for cheerleading? My daughter did all-star cheerleading and it is crazy. She loves the cheering aspect and is a great gymnast but she hates doing them together. At her middle school they are not allowed to throw stunts or do backhandsprings, yet if you can throw a backhandspring in try-outs you get 20 extra points for every one you can throw in sequence giving you an advantage over someone who may be a great cheerleader but not a great tumbler. Why? If you aren't allowed to throw them once you are on the squad what difference does it make if you can do them or how many you can do? It is getting too dangerous and I would love to see it go back to real cheering and not just stunt after stunt.

The amount of divisions has gotten cray but believe it or not those are actually not redundant. Translated Small-Coed (Small) means 5 or less guys and a squad total of no more than 20, Small-Coed (Large) means 5 or less guys with the team total being no higher than 35. It really was a necessary change because before you had teams with 20 kids and 5 stunt groups, going against teams with 35 kids with their 8 stunt groups and a few left over tumblers.

They also added the Medium Coed Division (5-13) guys, which was a huge change, that ended the dominance of the four or five top gyms in the nation whose squads are made up of 20+ guys and eight flyers, making them virtually unbeatable.

Well I am a first time poster but a long time cheerleader. Thank you to whoever made this thread, it's well deserved! I have been cheerleading since about second grade and I am now a senior in high school. Although my high school cheerleading career has just about come to an end, I am planning on trying out for college next month. Being a cheerleader so long I have seen and been through just about everything that comes along with cheerleading.

My squad went to UCA Nationals my freshman year and the experience is amazing. UCA is the largest cheerleading company and their nationals are huge. I think it really is necessary to have all of those categories because it makes everything fair for the squads. We were non-building large varsity and there were at least 20 groups in our division. I couldn't even imagine competing in stunting divisions where there are 30-40 squads. We also went to nationals my sophomore year but we went to Americheer's nationals. The experience was also amazing but it didn't even compare to UCA's.

I'm really excited to watch the national cheerleading and dance championships on ESPN2 today, I really hope they show whole routines and not just clips of them.

Cool..I caught about the last hour and a half of the cheer competition. Saw Tate's Creek and Greenup. At least they did show whole routines and not just clips! I enjoyed it, but wish I hadn't missed Dunbar LOL I was hoping to see their routine before seeing it on CN. Oh well!

I did notice alot of the "cheer fingers" thing in the stunts that just..sorry but I don't like it! Just be clean and steady!

I hear you on that, but I kind of straddle the fence on this one. OOH, traditional cheering can be quite boring for the non-cheerleader observer. I mean, how many times can you see a high V or hear 'Go Big Blue' without it all sounding and looking the same. OTOH, I do think with the emphasis on dancing, stunting and tumbling, the whole purpose and goal of leading cheers has gotten lost in the shuffle. I blame the competitions.

Elora, you must have a different schedule on ESPN2 than I do. I only got 1 hour total of the UCA championships. No Tates Creek or Greenup for me. Stupid, stupid DVR!

I did get to see Dunbar, and they looked like a completely different team than we've been seeing on Cheerleader Nation. I'm going to put the next part in spoiler tags in case people who watch the show wander over here, too. Ayrica's stunt bobbled again, but I don't think Chelsea was the flyer (camera was too far away, though you know I slo-mo'd it...several times). Told you it was a base problem. Overall, their stunts were far more difficult than we've seen on the show - single base extensions for the cheer! full twisting dismounts! - and their tumbling was tighter. I kept trying to see if I could see Meghan throwing her full and how Katie was holding up, but I couldn't. There was a closeup of Ryan during the dance, and she looked absolutely adorable. I was surprisingly impressed with them, and I can't wait to see the rest of the journey. The announcer said Donna Martin was the advisor, Saleem Habash was the choreographer and Nancy Hill was the coach. Who's Nancy? Maybe she's the reason they were like 20 times better than at Regionals.

I am so glad I finally got to see the whole routine. Esp. with the (I am a cheerleading neophyte so bear with me) stunt where two girls are held up on their backs and Chelsea and Ryan have their legs in their hands. I never got that stunt until I saw the amazing switch they made where the 2 top girls basically switch over top the other 2 and they end up in the pyramid. I would love to know lifetime's thinking in editing the routines so much.

I definitely saw Chelsea, I didn't necessarily see her on top of the 360 stretch stunt but I did see her when the team was dancing. Did anyone see Amanda at Nationals? I wonder if she really does get cut.


Re: the 3rd coach. I wonder if it is really a new person. In one episode I remember Donna mentioning an assistant, at first I thought she was talking about the cheerleader with the broken foot, but maybe they edited this Nancy woman out for some reason?

Yeah with Ayrica's going up late and struggling. But I'm still hella impressed with highschooler's doing partner stunts like that.

Did anyone see Sparkman High School, the team that won small Coed? That's the team my daughter just made as an incoming freshman. We were excited to watch as well, we are now waiting for All Star Nationals to turn up on there, jeez, it seems to take forever!

Congrats to your daughgter, cheer67! They were really impressive. Your daughter is obviously talented to make that team. And as a freshman to boot!

Anybody else think Westview got robbed? I mean, I love Dunbar, thanks to CN, but I think they may have coasted to a win on their name.


ITA, especially for girls. And yes, Ayrica was late and almost in a full squat.

I'm interested to hear what rules they decide on. Isn't it true that cheerleaders have to sign something in the paperwork saying they know the risk of injury before participating? If this is the case, especially since Donna made a big deal about getting the paperwork in, then I don't see how anybody could sue. Another thing that I'm curious about is that Dunbar not only practices in the school gym, but also in the All-Star gym, which is privately owned. Does this mean that neither gym can be sued if one of the girls is injured? Also, how is it that Dunbar is allowed to practice outside of the school in a private gym? I'm guessing that if the squad is not cheering at a game, then the school is not liable.

Lots of organizations require you to sign waivers saying you won't sue if you are injured, but people sue anyway (and successfully win lawsuits). I don't know exactly what paperwork Donna was referring to, but in almost every school activity I participated in, there was a ton of paperwork to bring in. I don't even remember what most of it was, but there were lots of signatures. Regardless of what the parents sign, if their children are hurt on school property OR while participating in a school activity (whether it's an away football game or practicing at a different gym), how many parents would say, "Oh, we signed that waiver in the fall, so we're SOL"?

My sister sustained a very serious injury in college. It was not her fault at all for not being safe either. She was in the dance recital, and they had practiced every number on stage with the orchestra pit up. Someone on the crew (no one ever admitted who it was) decided to lower the pit before the last number but didn't tell anyone. This was a dance with very low lighting and a fog machine, so none of the dancers realized the front ten feet of the stage were gone until my sister fell off the edge and broke her neck. Sure, she signed a waiver and you bet your ass she sued the school and won. No matter what kind of waiver you sign, the school still has a responsibility to do their utmost to prevent injuries from happening, whether that means hiring a competent coach, having safe equipment, etc. The school is the sponsoring institution, so ultimately the hold all the liability, which is why they are allowed to make the rules about what their students should and should not do.

As to why the Dunbar squad practices at an all star gym, there has been some discussion about this upthread. Practical speculation says that the high school doesn't have the proper facilities (like the springy blue mat) and/or the room the squad would normally use is a multi-purpose room used for other activities that isn't blocked off every single day after school for them. It's not unusual for certain teams to practice off campus. One of my friends went to a high school near the beach but without a pool, so their swimming, diving, and water polo teams had to practice off campus. Even if the team practices off campus, the school is still liable for anything that happens to the students.

Overall, the school is responsible for the students' welfare if they are at school or doing something for the school (participating in sports/activities) even if it's off campus. They are also liable when the students are travelling to or from an off campus location while representing the school, meaning if the football bus crashed on the way back from an away game, the school is liable. Again, this is about providing adequate and safe equipment. In the case of practicing at a private gym, if someone was injured the parents could sue both the school (the girl was at team practice for the school, the coach was supposed to be supervising the team to make sure no one would suffer serious injuries) as well as the gym (the injury occurred on their property so if it was due to faulty equipment, they could be liable as well).

I'm not trying to encourage or even explain why lawsuits that are filed as a result of team related injuries, and not all lawsuits end in millions of dollars for the person who is hurt. The bottom line is that cheerleading is dangerous even when it's done properly and safely, but accidents happen and schools don't want the bad publicity or big lawsuits, hence the move to ban certain moves.

The one thing that stood out to me about nationals on ESPN2 is how much I suddenly remembered I HATE their attention deficit wannabe fancy camera angles. I don't need the camera tilted at a 15 degree angle. I don't need to see the view of the girls from the wings. I don't need them to zoom in on two or three girls so that I miss the formations and the roll-offs. I don't need the camera swooping in and then flying off like I'm watching American Idol. I haven't watched the entire competition yet, but one of the routines that suffered a lot from the camera shenanigans was the school in the prop division that did the fashion theme. At one point, there was a girl standing on a box with her face between the curtains just smiling and mugging at the crowd for a full measure. Meanwhile in the foreground I could see that EVERYONE ELSE was dancing around, but I think I saw them from the shoulders up. Brilliant.

I totally noticed NCA doing this much more then UCA. Probably why I enjoy the UCA competitions a whole lot more. I remember watching the NCA competition (was it last week) and they spent an entire routine with Amanda Borden talking about the blue pad on the floor and how it's just foam and not springy like a gymnast pad and meanwhile they are focusing on single girls at a time (mostly the fliers) on their faces and only when one girl practically kicked herself in the face while doing a scorpion did I realize they were switching positions.

Yeah, some of the camera angles get a little crazy. My daughter and I watched Sunday and we were laughing b/c of the weird camera angles catching the one mistake Sparkman had that we could see when we were in Orlando watching it live. And they played it over and over LOL.

ITA. And I'm a former NCA cheerleader and coach so it pains me to say that. Still, NCA should really renegotiate their contract to have 2 hours instead of just 1. You only see seconds of each routine except the winners. And not even each winner in each category, just the Big 6. And they have the nerve to have like a million categories at that.

HATE the camera issue with cheerleading coverage. Half the time, the commentators are praising some move the viewers can't even see.

Re safety, doesn't a spring floor help protect against injuries? It seems crazy to me that partner stunts would be performed on a basketball floor; can't they save those for competition (on nice thick mats, with spotters) and just chant and dance at the games?

Did anyone watch the dance team coverage? I recognize that their technique wasn't perfect, but I loved the high kick team that had one guy on the squad and managed to turn that challenge into the most convincing and entertaining routine of the night. Can you imagine the choreographic nightmare of working one guy into a Laker Girls routine? For those that missed it, the one male member of the squad was costumed as a WWII serviceman and the rest as Betty Grable showgirl types flirting with him to big band music; the performance had so much character and was by far the most memorable. The one guy had a huge personality and the whole thing fell into place around him. I hope that team got some kind of creativity award for making lemonade out of lemons!

Sounds like I missed a good routine!

SET YOUR DVR/VCRs! Fox Sports Network is showing the NCA All Star Championships tomorrow from 3 to 4.

Did anyone else watch the NCA high school cheer and dance championships on Tuesday (4/25)? The crappy coverage made the UCA nationals look awesome. I can't believe that NCA doesn't even show the winning team's entire routine. Amanda Borden looked good (better than I remember her looking when she was still doing gymnastics), but the other commentator Abby was like a Stepford robot droning on and on with the same comments. My favorite was when she said that the teams' passion for cheer/dance leads to uniformity. Yes, my enthusiasm drove me to looking exactly like the person next to me. I know what she meant, but oy.

I did like that they explained the difference between the divisions, talked about how many people were on a team in X division, how many guys where on the team to be considered a different division, and went through some of the scoring. I was surprised that "technical moves" didn't get any bonus points but they could be penalized for making mistakes on the same technical moves.

I do believe we have UCA College Nationals, some sort of All Star Nationals (either this year's NASCC or last year's Worlds) and some dance team competition tomorrow on ESPN2. Yay!

I hate it that ESPN never shows the hip hop dance team routines. They just so like a 30 second round up and then it's back to the scintilating jazz dance!

Anybody watch the cheer bonanza on ESPN2 Saturday? College Nationals (Div 1A and 1), College Dance, All Star Nationals, and HS Dance? Fun!

I was! Just can't get enough of those pyramids and transitions!

After watching that NCA competition last week, the UCA one was downright indulgent. Showing complete routines - what a concept! It was nice to see them show D1 and open divisions since the last UCA block they showed a few weeks ago was only 1A. They even showed the D2 winners. I'm obviously still jaded by the crappy NCA coverage, so don't mind me.

I'm glad the commentators pointed out some of the new regulations, like only allowing two elements in a basket toss instead of three. I didn't like some of the bigger pyramids, but I guess there's only so much you can do when you're limited to going two and a half high.

I was disappointed in Long Beach's dance routine. It had potential but it looked sloppy. I think their high score was based partially on their reputation (which does happen in these competitions) because they didn't deserve to place as high as they did. I really liked Carlsbad High School. As much as I want to complain about the weird camera angles and the zoom ins of people's feet and other stupid things, I am just glad that I have watched over 6 hours of UCA in the last month.

http://www.cardiocheer.com/xcart/index.php

OK anyone want to discuss this one?!

Did anyone watch the World's competition on Saturday?

Did anyone else catch the college championships on ESPN2 this week? The performances were good, but as usual, the camera work was so bad that you couldn't even see some of the skills. It's especially bad when they're shooting the squad from the side during skills that only make sense viewed from the front, like side somis.

I watched, and I am nervous too about the editing and camera angles, since my girl will be on Sunday. The High School Championships air Sunday afternoon on ESPN2.

Well, for the high school side of things - it seemed all about the champions.

ALL of the defending champions going into the finals kept their title, including (Yes, Cheerleader Nation fans), Dunbar High.

Well, actually not really. The divisions that had new champs were:

Small Junior High-Monrovia (has not won since 1997)
Large Jr High-Houston Middle (Mt. Pisgah has won the last umpteen years)
Large Coed-Sun Prairie won, beating out Graves County, who had won two years in a row.

Most of the teams did repeat. We won our division for the fifth year in a row but there was a TON of shuffling in the division from 2nd to 13th place.

The camera work was even worse with the high schoolers than it was with the college squads. Why in the world would they think it's a good idea to aim the TV camera at the Jumbotron instead of, you know, the ATHLETES performing live?

I know! It was really disorienting and also when they show the side view or super up close view during big stunts, so you can't see the whole thing. Stupid. But I was pretty happy to see my girl on there in her white jacket.

I'm still waiting for ESPN to show the full hip hop sections when they show the dance team championships. They tend to just show highlights and maybe, maybe the full routine of the winner.